the people of the philippines are voting to choose a successor to president rodridgo duterte. access to polling stations is being limited under coronavirus measures. tens of thousands of security personnel have been deployed to safeguard ballots. the frontrunner is the son of the late dictator ferdinand marcos. now on bbc news, hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. never mind all the problems humans face here on planet earth, we still have an unquenchable curiosity about the cosmos. but in practical terms, where is our fascination with space taking us? it's more than five decades since the first moon landing and nasa is struggling to keep its promise to make a return journey and, by way of preparation, of course, for a mission to mars. my guest, jim green, retired as nasa's chief scientist earlier this year. are problems undermining nasa's mission? —— are problems of money and geopolitics undermining nasa's mission? jim green in silver spring, maryland, welcome to hardtalk. thank you so much, stephen. it's a pleasure to be here. well, it is a real pleasure to have you on the show, and you have had a pretty remarkable four—decades—long career inside nasa. but if you are being honest with me, would you accept that nasa's golden era came and went long before even you arrived at the agency? well, indeed. nasa has had, actually, several golden eras and it is a matter of perspective. you know, the programme has not only humans that explore beyond earth's boundaries, but also we have missions that study the universe or move out into the solar system and explore, and we have absolutely exploded in those areas that you may not be aware of. well, i kind of am aware of them because i've done plenty of research into you, and you've been intimately involved with research missions to mars, jupiter, some remarkable work has been done. but isn't it true to say that the public imagination is only truly 100% captured when nasa is sending human beings to explore rock, celestial bodies, beyond our own? isn't that the truth? well, of course. we have that connection with humans and we want to be there, and i think that's what the attraction is. when humans step out on the moon or they float around on the space station, that, of course, is going to garnish the public attention. but, you know, our robotic missions are very personal to us. we spent a significant amount of our career building them, launching them, landing them or having them rove and we get to know them and their idiosyncrasies really well and we cry when they die. so, in a way, you know, humanity has been exploring the solar system and has been exploring the universe in new and unique ways. if i ask you to sum up what nasa is for in a very brief mission statement, what would it be? exploring the universe and answering some of the top questions we want to know. are we alone, and how did we get here? does the fact that the funding coming from the federal government to nasa has been slashed? if one looks at the history of this, around the time of the first moon landing, i think the us government was pouring 4% or more of the entire federal budget into the space programme. these days, nasa is lucky if it gets 0.4 or 0.5% from the federal government. does that suggest you that the politicians and the the public, too, have lost interest or faith in nasa's mission? i don't look at it that way. indeed, we have a large amount of our budget going into building the infrastructure that we use and are leveraging right now, but i think we get tremendous public support and attention. you have to think about, like any budget, a balanced budget. so, what portion do you want to use on domestic programmes, what portion do you want to use for nasa to explore space? and, in fact, congress has been very bipartisan in terms of its support of nasa, allowing us to continue on at a steady rate, making some spectacular discoveries. well, you, jim, clearly are an optimist, because what you appear to be avoiding there is the issue of underfunding. jim chuckles. the politicians, for years, have been talking about their enthusiasm for nasa's mission to take human beings back to the moon as a prelude, then, to pushing on to a crewed expedition to mars. they think that is something the public would like and is enthusiastic about, but they're not prepared to pay for it. you've had to already, before you left nasa's chief scientistjob, you had to accept that the money wasn't there to deliver on getting this mission up to the moon again by 2023. it slipped to 2024, it may even slip years beyond that. what is going wrong? well, of course, we all went through a pandemic. how can we, as engineers and scientists, work closely together building instruments and assembling things during a time when social distancing and all the other problems that we had? so, there has been some effect to what we could get done during the pandemic but we are making steady progress and we're really doing quite well. you know, we are building... crosstalk. with respect, you are not making steady progress. jim chuckles. the only progress you are making is constantly putting the deadlines back. when do you think this artemis mission will actually land people on the moon again, because the date keeps slipping. it does keep slipping for the simple reason that we've got certain milestones that we have to accomplish that come before we actually step on the moon, and the first big one is coming up. it's the artemis i mission, where we launch the space launch system that will then go out, go around the moon in a figure eight pattern and return. now, that won't be crewed but, indeed, we brought it out to the pad, it's been assembled, we have found some leaks, we brought it back into the vehicle assembly building, and we're working some issues. i mean, when we do something of the size that we've never done before, we have to move it methodically and carefully but we are making really steady progress to doing that. we'll see artemis i this year. yeah, but let's talk honesty and realism, rather than hope. donald trump, when he was still in office, he said that as far as he was concerned, us citizens had to be on the surface of mars by 2033. all the experts i've read recently say that is entirely unfeasible. so, are you going to be honest with me about that? i can, in the sense that i would agree with that. we won't be on the surface of mars with humans in 2033. now, you have to realise we are on the surface of mars, we've been roving around on mars, we've been doing all kinds of stuff on mars, and that's absolutely necessary before humans can go. you know, the programme is really set up that planetary scientists make the first step. they really study the environment. they really understand what resources are available. they do the science, and the analysis necessary to support human exploration to follow. we want to be able to do it safely. therefore, we don't want any surprises, and it is really through that planetary science first step that enables us to do that. do you think that you are dangerously fixated on mars — you, jim green, personally? you've spent a lot of time talking and writing about your conviction that mars can be, i think this is the right word, �*terraformed'? you can adapt the atmosphere around mars, you can use magnetic shields to place between mars and the sun, to somehow transform mars into a place that is conceivably long—term liveable for human beings. it would cost not even hundreds of billions of dollars to make that come true — surely trillions of dollars? inconceivable amounts of resource, time and money. what on earth is the point of going down that track? oh, it's really quite simple to understand. we have the ability to really look at the weather on mars, to understand the physical phenomena of evaporation, transport, clouds forming, to really, really get into the climate of mars. and as we do that, we also learn how to do a betterjob of developing the programmes for predicting climate here on earth. so, comparative planetology has been really important to us. we're in the era of climate change that everyone hears or talks about. as a planetary scientist, i can tell you the climate on earth has done nothing but change, and what we're moving into is a rapid change, period. —— moving into is a rapid change period. what happened to climate on mars? mars also went through a rapid climate change. it was a blue planet early on and now, it is a desert — and cold at that. and so, consequently, the concepts that i do in terms of future thinking about how we can live and work on mars are done in supercomputers, where we look at the physics and we look at what's happening, and many of those exa m ples actually affect our understanding of our own planet. i spoke to a guy i suspect you know not so long ago in the us, the commentator on space science, neil degrasse tyson, and he said to me, "you've got "to understand tyson, and he said to me, "you've got to understand "that the idea that we went to the moon because ofjust "the unquenchable curiosity of the human being is "notion, but we actually went to the moon because there "was a massive driver of national security, "of military interest, of cold war geopolitics — "that's why the investment was made". and if one looks to the future and where that kind of investment might be in space science, surely, it's going to be in the militarisation of the low orbit space, where russia and china are already developing technologies for satellites that can knock out other satellites, where they are trying to establish, it seems, the notion of satellite supremacy? isn't that where you and other americans are probably going to have to focus your interest from a national security point of view? indeed, the us has national security needs. space is an integral part of that. we use space as — from a vantage point of looking down. that's always the high ground as we know it. and therefore, we're going to have to deal with these issues well into the future. did you — when donald trump developed this notion of a space force — which i noticejoe biden hasn't abandoned, the space force project continues — were you supportive of it or, as a scientist, did you feel it was somehow a perversion of what space science should be about? well, my personal opinion is that nasa's not the only organisation in the federal government that works in the space realm and many different parts of the department of defense were working in that. the space force gathered those elements together to create a more coordinated set of information, understanding, analysis, and then action. for instance, we're moving into an era where there are so many launches with so much spacecraft that sometimes die in orbit, causing what we would call orbital debris, that would be of danger to working satellites, that we need to track all those, we need to know where they are, we need to even move space station to avoid space debris. and so, consequently, that group, really, is now together, and i think functioning very well. right. the militarisation of space and the notion that the united states needs to develop its capabilities there has led the us to ban all space cooperation with china, but it did not and has not banned space cooperation with russia. now, you've been one of nasa's leaders over the last decade, or two or three. kami do you acknowledge that the increased dependency kami ependency of nasa on cooperation with russia, particularly in the last decade, has been a major strategic mistake? i think at this point, what we're seeing is that now we have our own servicing, our own ability to fly the space station. we're not dependent on russia to do that. we were at one time. i think we then realised... if i may say so, we had the prospect even just weeks ago of the russians leaving a us scientist in space because they were so angry about the imposition of american sanctions on russia as a result of the invasion of ukraine. the russians have told nasa that future cooperation will not happen as long as those sanctions remain in place. so, you guys right now are in the middle of geopolitics and your relationship with russia, to many americans, looks unacceptable. well, i think what you have to also realise is these astronauts work as a team, and it's an international team. we need a place where we can work together in a peaceful way. we have two russians on the space station right now. you know, there's no move afoot in the nasa position not to continue that relationship because they are members of the crew. they are performing important duties on the space station. they rely on the esa and nasa astronauts just as much as we rely on the russian astronauts. it's a team, and i think that's important to do. so when nasa bosses told astronauts like scott kelly to tone down their criticism of russia on social media, you were supportive of that, were you? i was. nasa needs to speak as one organisation and our approach is one of a peaceful means and our interaction needs to continue in that area. that's how we're going to, i think, work through some of the more thorny problems as we get to the moon. all right. notjust us, but the russians and the chinese and many others. if we can establish that space is for peace and continue in that way and demonstrate that, i think that's important. those are fine words. whether they can be realistic in the geopolitical world that we see right now is another matter. and it's notjust about state actors, is it? it's also about privateers. it's about the billionaires like elon musk and jeff bezos, who are determined to play a huge role in space exploration, and nasa's invited them in as partners. do you think that was wise? well, nasa's not only invited them in, we welcome them in open arms because, you know, 15 years ago, we started that whole concept of of doing more commercial activities — you know, we funded them as start—ups. of course, we want them to come in and be part of this grand move as we use space in new and creative ways. you know, there's many commercial aspects. hang on. what's new and creative about it when you've got individuals paying roughly $55 million each to get a ride on this axiom mission into low orbit? what is being achieved scientifically? nothing at all. you'rejust making space the domain of the super rich. you know, this conversation perhaps is much like what happened in the �*30s when lindbergh crossed the atlantic. you know, there were many people that said, "why do "we want to cross the atlantic? "in 36 hours, i can take a boat and, you know, "in a week be in europe." we have to recognise that space provides a new realm of thinking and operating. i would much rather launch from new york and land in tokyo in 50 minutes, and it's because one orbit around the earth is 90 minutes long, period. so you have to recognise what's happening is the start of, i think, a commercialising access to space in a way that will provide a new dimension in the way we travel, the way we think, and the way we will work together as a world. right. but we, jim, have been talking about nasa's clarity of purpose and mission going forward. and it's going to get confused, isn't it, when the privateers — and these guys are super wealthy and super powerful — they start believing that they should have a say in how nasa does things. for example, we've got jeff bezos, who's taken legal action against nasa because he felt he was frozen out of the of the competition to deliver the landing gear for the artemis moon landings. and elon musk got the go—ahead and notjeff bezos and he's going to court. this is going to make nasa's future extraordinarily complicated and difficult. it does, but it's always been that way, which you haven't recognised as every time we put out a request for a proposal, obtain those, make a selection, many times we'll have protests. many times we'll have to go to court and resolve those. that does happen. it's not unique, but that's the environment we're in. it's about competition. it's about getting the best value for our dollar. and that's the method that we've developed to do that. before we end, and i don't want this to be a depressing end to our interview, but i do want to consider some of the extreme threats to our beautiful blue planet that you've spent a lot of time looking at. sure. in particular, i'm interested in your work on what are called solar flares and the extraordinary electromagnetic implications that these flares from coming from the sun have. is it true to say that a solar flare could happen at any point and could bring down the earth's entire electronic infrastructure? yes, indeed. we're recognising that we haven't seen the most intense sun in the space age that we could have. we've gone back in the past and recognised there's been enormous coronal mass ejections where huge pieces of the upper atmosphere of the sun have been blown off, hitting the earth in such a way that causes huge auroras. and the auroras go through canada, through the united states, through mexico, through central america. and if you were in colombia, you looked up and saw a beautiful red aurora. what's happening is these huge currents are arising in the ionosphere, producing additional currents in our power grid that cannot possibly keep them going. and therefore, they burn up transformers and you lose them. we don't have a few hours to turn everything off before it got blown out by such a solarflare, right? well, we're developing the processes now such that many companies are taking the alert system that the us is producing. the noaa, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration, is responsible for space weather alerts. and so we do that fundamental research and noaa does the alert systems. so more companies are coming around to the idea. i mean, even airlines are using the noaa alert system so they don't fly over the poles where there's a lot of radiation going on. they'll take a lower latitude route. a final, final thought. you left your chief scientistjob at nasa before it was confirmed that there is indeed any form of life beyond our own planet. now, i don't want to be miserable about you and your fate, but do you believe confirmation of that life beyond us is going to come before you are no longer living and breathing on planet earth? i do. we're making enormous progress. i mean, you have to realise in the a0 years i've seen in the space industry, we didn't understand super storms. now we do. we didn't understand much about dark energy, dark matter. now we do and we're on it. and we also didn't recognise that there are planets around other stars. we didn't think we could even measure them and see them. now, we know there are more planets in our galaxy than there are stars, and many of them are in places much like the earth, where we receive the light from the sun and we can have water in not only liquid form, frozen form, a vapour form. those are important conditions, we believe, for life. and we're finding planets that are have conditions where life may arise. now, with webb, our next big telescope, james webb space telescope, we're going to start teasing out what some of these planets look like from their atmospheres. now, we're going to compare those atmospheres to the ones we know. are they more venus—like? are they more mars—like? are they more earth—like? this is a huge step forward. so i think we're going to see some really astounding discoveries in the next handful of years. jim green, ifeel like our conversation is only really just starting rather than ending, but sadly we're totally out of time. so for now, thank you very much for being on hardtalk. stephen, thank you very much. hello. the weekend brought plenty of dry and settled late spring weather. one or two showers on saturday for eastern england but sunday was dry pretty much across—the—board. this was the picture in bradfield in sheffield. a bit of fair weather cloud on sunday. a change in the forecast through the week ahead. it's looking more unsettled. windier, wetter too, particularly for western scotland. could be some rain by the middle of the week further south in england and wales where it's been very dry recently. back to monday morning. dominated by high pressure towards the east but far enough away to allow these weather fronts from the north—west. rain spilling in across the west of northern ireland, and western scotland from the word go. that's going to edge its way south—east through the day. going to be quite persistent and heavy for a time in western scotland. the winds picking up with gusts of 30—a0 mph. england and wales staying predominantly dry. things turning hazy as the high cloud spills in the head of the weather front. 22 or 23 degrees, feeling warm towards the south—east. we've still got high levels of pollen, tree pollen at this time of year across england and wales but with the cloud, the breeze and rain further north, pollen levels are low and moderate. monday evening and overnight into tuesday, the weather fronts slipping further south—east, tending to fizzle out as they do so. a band of cloud, the odd spot of drizzle left for central and southern parts of england and wales first thing on tuesday. clearer skies further north but it's going to be a mild and frost—free day. a bit of a breeze on tuesday coming from west or south—westerly direction, just pushing the weather front slowly away towards the south—east. it could stay quite murky for much of the day down towards the likes of kent for instance. for the rest of the uk, a day of sunshine and blustery showers. they'll be most frequent in the far north—west. temperatures somewhere between 11—20 on tuesday. a bit above average towards the south. towards the middle of the week we are watching this developing area of low pressure. some uncertainty about the exact timing and track of it, but it looks like it will bring some rain to some southern parts of england and wales, moving from west to east. further north across the uk, sunny spells and again some blustery showers, particularly frequent for the west of of scotla nd. temperatures 11—18, so a touch cooler in the middle of the week. bye. this is bbc news. i'm samantha simmonds with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. russia is to stage its annual victory day parade but it's condemned for its aggression against ukraine. a blast from the past: why the son of a former dictator may become the philippines�* next president. after a bridge collapses in northern pakistan, officials warn soaring temperatures are melting glaciers and causing flooding. and joy forjodie: the liverpool actress is among the winners as britain's television industry celebrates its success.